by David Burke
Jay said, “Seriously though, please don’t let me be alone with her and please try to keep her and Daphne apart.”
“Does that mean we should add Daphne to the team? Do you think that we could win over her loyalties?” Meikiyo asked.
Jay looked at Huong, who was clearly uncomfortable with this discussion. Then he asked, “Huong, what do you think that Jasmine would bring to the team? Could she help us in a fight? Would she even be willing to go into the dungeon with us?”
“I… uh… I don’t really know. I just know that she is a natural leader and with her on your side the rest of the cluster would fall in line,” she answered.
“Okay, I think we just have to let everyone who wants to have a chance to interview. Maybe we could take groups into the first floor this morning. Any of us should be strong enough to carry a team in there. I feel much better now that you all got the regeneration ability. Oh and that reminds me, did you get telepathy like I did when you crossed the first threshold? I can’t believe I haven’t asked before now,” Jay said.
They all smiled like the cat that ate the canary, giving Jay his answer. “Why haven’t we started practicing it then?”
Amelia said, “Oh we use it all the time. How else do you think we can talk about your cute butt without you hearing? Girls have to compare notes and all.”
Jay started to protest but then he realized that they had been sharing notes about what he liked and that had resulted in his life being easier. Who was he to complain if he had three caring girlfriends? He just never would have expected to have them all at one time and certainly to have them talking about if he needed another one.
“So, maybe you could use your shroud now to walk me to the terminal?” Jay asked Amelia.
“Fine, but I wanna see you without the blanket one more time. Gotta give me something to remember you by if I have to run a bunch of wannabes through the first level today,” she replied.
“Very funny,” Jay said as he gave a weak little chuckle.
Suddenly all seriousness, Meikiyo said, “I don’t think she was kidding.”
Huong added in, “Yeah stop being sexist, can’t a girl enjoy the view too?”
Jay realized the only way to deal with this kinda teasing was to do so head on. If he acted the least bit embarrassed, they would tease him about it, not out of spite but just good-natured fun. Still, he wasn’t fond of it.
He thought to himself that if he could stare down a charging owlbear, then why not show the full Monty off to the girls he cared so much about? Better yet, do it with some swagger. So he stood up from the bed and dropped the blanket before moving into a hip roll and flexing to show off chest, abs, and biceps.
Then in a single, rapid stride he crossed the space between himself and Amelia and took her into her arms faster than even her enhanced reflexes could respond. The boost from crossing the new threshold and whatever the extra PSI had done was far more noticeable than when he gained a single point in a stat. He still wasn’t able to boost his speed more than four times but the base speed was so much greater now that multiplied to maximum he felt like he was at least 50% faster than before.
As his arms encircled her, he lifted her up to him. Acting firmly enough to demonstrate his control but gently enough not to hurt her. He now stood more than a foot taller than her. So as he pulled her up and laid a kiss on her, her feet were entirely off the ground.
While his tongue explored her mouth, he felt her go limp in his arms like he could do whatever he wanted with her. Best not to let his mind go too far down that path or they really weren’t going to be leaving the bungalow. His little brain was already focused on that thought.
Setting her down, he said, “Hopefully that gives you something to remember me by.” He was pleased to discover that for once he had left Amelia speechless. Then as he looked at the other two they seemed to alternate between jealous frowns at her and wistful looks at him. “Can we go now?”
Amelia didn’t answer other than to take his hand and raise her shroud around them shutting them out from prying eyes. Jay found her ability fascinating. The world around them looked gray and muted through the shroud as if seeing it through a veil of ash or perhaps shadow.
As amazing as it was seeing through the veil, there were a good number of the girls from their small community out and moving around near the terminal. There was something odd about passing within a couple feet of them without being seen, especially given that he was buck naked. When he got to the terminal, he was able to pull up the goods that he needed and get dressed without anyone but Amelia staring at him. He was gonna owe her for this but also made a mental note to be prepared the next time he had a threshold to cross.
Once he was dressed, Amelia dropped the shroud. “Thanks, I owe you,” Jay said.
“Yep, and don’t think I won’t collect,” she laughed in response.
“I’m counting on it, but how do you want to handle this?”
“You mean Team Jay’s matchmaking service?” Amelia asked.
“Do we have to call it that?”
“I just call it like I see it. The easiest way will be to have us each lead a team into the dungeon, like you suggested. We need to add one more for sure, but you also need to consider the possibility that we need to add backups to the team,” Amelia said.
“Are you suggesting that I need more girlfriends?”
“As long as you remember I have dibs.”
Jay just shrugged and said, “Well I guess a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.”
He hopped away from Amelia when she tried to slap him. His pace was just too fast for her to keep up without running as he strode over to the main group of people who were gathered around Jasmine. The rest of the team were already waiting there.
“Just the person we have all been waiting for. Can you tell us what those creatures were, Jay?” Jasmine asked with a completely business-like tone.
Her question caused all eyes to fall on him and immediately he saw several girls who were eyeing him. He had never really thought about what it must feel like to be a hot girl on campus. To constantly be being undressed by the eyes of half the people looking at you.
Now, he was getting a taste of that feeling and was of two minds. There was a part of him that was completely digging all the attention. Yet he was smart enough to know that it wasn’t necessarily all it was cracked up to be, which made him feel sorry for those girls he had known who experienced that. For some reason that brought his ex-crush back to mind. Trina had been that kind of girl.
“I don’t know their name or haven’t made one up for them yet, but it is likely that they were from the second floor. Which means that if we want to be safe at night, we are going to have to clear the first and the second floor both each day.”
That brought up a round of fearful questions and pleading to be allowed to just stay in Jay’s bungalow. Jay did his best to ignore it as many of the girls were still obviously very moody. “Has anyone seen Miguel and Tyler yet?”
Kenzie said, “Yeah the asses came out long enough for me to heal them and then ran back into the dungeon.”
Jasmine brought everyone back under control. “So do you have a plan for dealing with this, Jay? That is beyond getting a tan and apparently growing taller.”
“It is simple really. We are going to lead four teams into the dungeon today. I will lead one, while Amelia, Huong, and Meikiyo will each lead their own team. These teams will have two purposes. First, we will be trying to clear as many of the monsters from the first floor in the next four hours that we can. Second, anyone who wants to apply for the open fifth spot on our team can apply. As far as the tan and new height, I crossed the second threshold. This is how I look now, sorry if I shocked anyone.”
Some girls murmured about it looking great until Mia demanded, “On what team?”
“Team Jay,” Meikiyo answered simply.
“What does Team Jay do?” Daphne asked.
“This is it,” Jay thought. “This is the point where s
omeone accuses me of taking advantage of these girls, of using my position to collect girlfriends.”
Instead Amelia answered, “Team Jay looks out for each other, but our primary purpose is to descend further into the dungeon. We are trying to get stronger so that we can beat this test whatever it is.”
One of the newcomer girls whose name Jay couldn’t remember asked, “Do we have to go into the dungeon if we are on Team Jay or can we do other duties?” He couldn’t help but grin at the suggestive way she said it. She had a certain sassy Latino attitude about her. He couldn’t help but think she would be a firecracker in the sack, but then he caught himself. He needed to focus. “Look them in the eyes,” he told himself, but it was so hard when there were so many interesting places to look.
“No to be on the team you need to bring some sort of tactical skill to the party beyond spreading your legs.” Jay couldn’t even say he was surprised by how catty Amelia sounded.
“So first you will have to go into the dungeon and prove you can be part of the team. Then you will have to have an interview with one of Jay’s advisors. If you obtain a recommendation from one of Jay’s advisors then you will get to interview with him. After that the entire team will vote on who to add to the team,” Huong said.
“And just so you bitches don’t think all you have to do is show a little skin to our erstwhile if easily distracted leader, you need to know that the team is a democracy. Jay is the leader but the other three team members can outvote him,” Amelia said.
Meikiyo jumped in then. “None of you have to try to join Team Jay. You can decide you don’t want to now, or after you see what the dungeon is like. You may also decide that you want to group up with Tyler or Miguel. You can stop at any point up until you fully join the team. At that time you are one of us and that is the way it is.”
“Do all the team members get to…uh… well you know… with him?” Daphne asked.
“God stop being such a prude, just ask what you want to know,” Kenzie said. When the large-bosomed redhead clammed up, she added, “She wants to know if she gets to fuck Jay.”
The team all looked at one another before Huong answered, “We can’t force Jay to do that anymore than he would try to force you.”
Amelia interrupted, “But the short answer is, yes. Jay wouldn’t leave you abandoned. But all of you sluts need to remember that I have first dibs.”
Jay leaned in and whispered something to Amelia who looked back at him questioning. He offered up his trademark shrug, and she just shook her head as if she didn’t agree but then she said, “At this time any of the girls who have slept with Tyler or Miguel are not eligible to apply. Jay doesn’t want to cause any issues between the three guys here.”
Jasmine shook her head and Jay felt a rush of calm go out from her. The grumbling and fearful complaints came almost to a complete stop. “So will you make a second trip after lunch for those that couldn’t fit on the teams this morning?”
Jay answered, “No this afternoon me and the team are going to be checking out the second dungeon floor. We will need to clear it to keep people safe, anyway.”
“I thought you were going to pick new team members today?” Jasmine asked.
“Well, yeah…” Jay began before she interrupted him.
“It isn’t really fair to make all these girls wait. Some of them have been wanting to get a spot for a long time.” As Jasmine spoke he felt a not-so-subtle compulsion fall over him. He began to wonder why he was being so unfair. He needed to treat these girls better. They only wanted to be with him. Why couldn’t he see that?
Before he could be swept away in the emotion, Jay activated Iron Will to its maximum level. The pressure and feelings of guilt faded but were still there in the background. He was gonna have to figure this out.
Amelia came to his rescue. “We will be picking a fifth because we are allowed to take a group of five into the second floor. Then we will be picking three or four alternates because not everyone will always be able to go on every dungeon run. Those choices will be made tomorrow and will be based upon what you bring to the team, how well you can mesh with the rest of us, and if you can impress whichever advisor you interview with.”
The break gave Jay’s head a moment to clear, so he asked a question which had been on his mind, “Is Jessie okay after last night?”
Kenzie answered, “She is fully healed back up, but it was touch and go for a moment.”
“That is good to hear, she helped save us all last night just as much as me and deserves everyone’s thanks,” Jay said. He was a bit surprised at the reaction he got. Instead of a bunch of people thanking the blue-haired girl that he now saw in the background, he heard them saying things about how sweet it was that he had been concerned about her and what a great guy he must be. The chemicals must be in overdrive now, so he needed to get these girls some levels so that they would be better able to resist its effects.
He cleared his throat to get attention again. “Okay so if you don’t meet the requirements for joining the team, or simply don’t want to, you should go off and practice your skills or form your own teams. Heck, even just wait for Tyler and Miguel, but anyone who wants to join Team Jay should meet at the foot of the ziggurat in 15 minutes.” Jay felt silly calling it Team Jay, but he figured they had accepted his word for the lizats so he could go with it.
Chapter 12 - Team Tryouts
Jay felt fortunate that he had gotten to go into the dungeon first. There had been a fair amount of bickering when he just called out Jessie, Mia, and Kenzie’s names. They were as surprised as the others but that surprise quickly gave way to preening at being chosen to be in his group for the tryouts.
He largely ignored the complaints and took the girls to the terminal to help equip them with anything else that they needed. Kenzie was immediately willing to take a new dagger and better leather armor along with an assortment of personal items. When the other girls looked at her she had simply said, “What? He offered.”
As he went through a rundown of each girls’ skills he tried to help them pick the right gear. They each told him that they had been practicing during the past week but none of them had trained with him. He had avoided Mia and Kenzie because they were on the council and Jessie had apparently done mostly solo training.
Kenzie was going to be their healer. Her healing didn’t work quite like Huong’s though. Instead of promoting cellular regeneration her ability drained the heat out of wounded areas and replaced it with some lattice of energy that promoted healing. She didn’t know exactly how it worked but called it cryo-healing. Apparently it was quite painful.
Beyond that she had the ability to conjure ice although she mostly had practice creating either walls or jagged blades she could send flying through the air. Jay said, “Okay, so she is our healer. Everyone’s job is to keep the healer alive so that they can keep the rest of us alive. Her backup role will be as ranged DPS or if the fit really hits the shan, she can create a wall to buy us time.”
“Um, DPS? What’s that mean?” Mia asked.
Before Jay could answer Jessie piped up, “It means damage per second, duh?”
Mia glared at Jessie but she didn’t seem to notice. Jay however asked, “What’d you play?”
“A bit of this and a bit of that. WoW when I was a kid. Some first-person shooters but never really got into those. I got into Sky Realms for a while. It was really cool with all those different islands that you could visit, but then their whole system crashed or something like that. Heard weird rumors about what happened to some of the players.”
“I knew you were weird with the blue hair and all, but what are you two talking about?” Kenzie asked.
“Just gamer stuff. I finally found a kindred spirit,” Jay responded.
Kenzie and Mia looked at each other while Jessie beamed. Then Kenzie quickly said, “Oh I always wanted to learn how to play games.”
Mia added, “Me too.”
Jay smiled trying not to exclude them while Je
ssie snickered, “Sure you did.”
Kenzie turned on Jessie and said, “Well I’m the healer, what can you do?”
This time Jay beat her to the punch. “I picked her to be this group’s tank, after what I saw her doing with those creatures last night.”
“Um, I sorta figured you would be the tank,” Jessie said.
“Whoa, you two have to explain these gamer terms. I don’t want to miss out,” Kenzie said.
“It’s very simple. The basic elements of a well-rounded group are a tank that is the person who keeps the attention of the monsters and gets hit so the others don’t have to. Then there is the healer, that is the person who keeps the tank and to a lesser extent everyone else alive. The final main piece is the DPS, which can be ranged like Kenzie’s ice attacks or in close like stabbing a dagger,” Jay said as though he was explaining the most obvious of things. Jay looked at her for a moment longer.